Somewhere in France — Part 3

In consequence Marie acquired a mass of facts, gossip, and guesses.

From these she mentally selected such information as, to her employers across the Aisne, would be of vital interest.

And to rid herself of Thierry and on the fourth floor seek Anfossi was now her only wish.

But, in attempting this, by the return of the adjutant she was delayed.

To Thierry the adjutant gave a sealed envelope.

"Thirty-one, Boulevard des Invalides," he said.

With a smile he turned to Marie.

"And you will accompany him!"

"I!"

exclaimed Marie.

She was sick with sudden terror.

But the tolerant smile of the adjutant reassured her.

"The count, your husband," he explained, "has learned of your detention here by the enemy, and he has besieged the General Staff to have you convoyed safely to Paris."

The adjutant glanced at a field telegram he held open in his hand.

"He asks," he continued, "that you be permitted to return in the car of his friend, Captain Thierry, and that on arriving you join him at the Grand Hôtel."

Thierry exclaimed with delight.

"But how charming!"

he cried.

"To-night you must both dine with me at La Rue's." He saluted his superior officer.

"Some petrol, sir," he said.

"And I am ready."

To Marie he added: "The car will be at the steps in five minutes."

He turned and left them.

The thoughts of Marie, snatching at an excuse for delay, raced madly.

The danger of meeting the Count d'Aurillac, her supposed husband, did not alarm her.

The Grand Hôtel has many exits, and, even before they reached it, for leaving the car she could invent an excuse that the gallant Thierry would not suspect.

But what now concerned her was how, before she was whisked away to Paris, she could convey to Anfossi the information she had gathered from Thierry.

First, of a woman overcome with delight at being reunited with her husband she gave an excellent imitation; then she exclaimed in distress: "But my aunt, Madame Benet!"

she cried.

"I cannot leave her!"

"The Sisters of St. Francis," said the adjutant, "arrive within an hour to nurse the wounded.

They will care also for your aunt."

Marie concealed her chagrin.

"Then I will at once prepare to go," she said.

The adjutant handed her a slip of paper.

"Your _laisser-passer_ to Paris," he said.

"You leave in five minutes, madame!"

As temporary hostess of the château Marie was free to visit any part of it, and as she passed her door a signal from Madame Benet told her that Anfossi was on the fourth floor, that he was at work, and that the coast was clear.

Softly, in the felt slippers she always wore, as she explained, in order not to disturb the wounded, she mounted the staircase.

In her hand she carried the housekeeper's keys, and as an excuse it was her plan to return with an armful of linen for the arriving Sisters.

But Marie never reached the top of the stairs.

When her eyes rose to the level of the fourth floor she came to a sudden halt.

At what she saw terror gripped her, bound her hand and foot, and turned her blood to ice.

At her post for an instant Madame Benet had slept, and an officer of the staff, led by curiosity, chance, or suspicion, had, unobserved and unannounced, mounted to the fourth floor.

When Marie saw him he was in front of the room that held the wireless.

His back was toward her, but she saw that he was holding the door to the room ajar, that his eye was pressed to the opening, and that through it he had pushed the muzzle of his automatic.

What would be the fate of Anfossi Marie knew.

Nor did she for an instant consider it.

Her thoughts were of her own safety; that she might live.

Not that she might still serve the Wilhelmstrasse, the Kaiser, or the Fatherland; but that she might live.

In a moment Anfossi would be denounced, the château would ring with the alarm, and, though she knew Anfossi would not betray her, by others she might be accused.

To avert suspicion from herself she saw only one way open.

She must be the first to denounce Anfossi.

Like a deer she leaped down the marble stairs and, in a panic she had no need to assume, burst into the presence of the staff.

"Gentlemen!"

she gasped, "my servant--the chauffeur--Briand is a spy!

There is a German wireless in the château.

He is using it!

I have seen him."

With exclamations, the officers rose to their feet.

General Andre alone remained seated.

General Andre was a veteran of many Colonial wars: Cochin-China, Algiers, Morocco.

The great war, when it came, found him on duty in the Intelligence Department.

His aquiline nose, bristling white eyebrows, and flashing, restless eyes gave him his nickname of _l'Aigle_.

In amazement, the flashing eyes were now turned upon Marie.

He glared at her as though he thought she suddenly had flown mad.

"A German wireless!"

he protested.

"It is impossible!"

"I was on the fourth floor," panted Marie, "collecting linen for the Sisters.

In the room next to the linen closet I heard a strange buzzing sound.

I opened the door softly.

I saw Briand with his back to me seated by an instrument.

There were receivers clamped to his ears!

My God!

The disgrace.

The disgrace to my husband and to me, who vouched for him to you!"

Apparently in an agony of remorse, the fingers of the woman laced and interlaced.

"I cannot forgive myself!"

The officers moved toward the door, but General Andre halted them.

Still in a tone of incredulity, he demanded: "When did you see this?"

Marie knew the question was coming, knew she must explain how she saw Briand, and yet did not see the staff officer who, with his prisoner, might now at any instant appear.

She must make it plain she had discovered the spy and left the upper part of the house before the officer had visited it.

When that was she could not know, but the chance was that he had preceded her by only a few minutes.

"When did you see this?"

repeated the general.

"But just now," cried Marie; "not ten minutes since."

"Why did you not come to me at once?"

"I was afraid," replied Marie.

"If I moved I was afraid he might hear me, and he, knowing I would expose him, would kill me--and so _escape you!

_" There was an eager whisper of approval.

For silence, General Andre slapped his hand upon the table.

"Then," continued Marie, "I understood with the receivers on his ears he could not have heard me open the door, nor could he hear me leave, and I ran to my aunt.

The thought that we had harbored such an animal sickened me, and I was weak enough to feel faint.

But only for an instant.

Then I came here."

She moved swiftly to the door.

"Let me show you the room," she begged; "you can take him in the act."

Her eyes, wild with the excitement of the chase, swept the circle.

"Will you come?"

she begged.

Unconscious of the crisis he interrupted, the orderly on duty opened the door.

"Captain Thierry's compliments," he recited mechanically, "and is he to delay longer for Madame d'Aurillac?"

With a sharp gesture General Andre waved Marie toward the door.

Without rising, he inclined his head.

"Adieu, madame," he said.

"We act at once upon your information.

I thank you!"

As she crossed from the hall to the terrace, the ears of the spy were assaulted by a sudden tumult of voices.

They were raised in threats and curses.

Looking back, she saw Anfossi descending the stairs.

His hands were held above his head; behind him, with his automatic, the staff officer she had surprised on the fourth floor was driving him forward.

Above the clenched fists of the soldiers that ran to meet him, the eyes of Anfossi were turned toward her.

His face was expressionless.

His eyes neither accused nor reproached.

And with the joy of one who has looked upon and then escaped the guillotine, Marie ran down the steps to the waiting automobile.

With a pretty cry of pleasure she leaped into the seat beside Thierry.

Gayly she threw out her arms.

"To Paris!"

she commanded.

The handsome eyes of Thierry, eloquent with admiration, looked back into hers.

He stooped, threw in the clutch, and the great gray car, with the machine gun and its crew of privates guarding the rear, plunged through the park.

"To Paris!"

echoed Thierry.

In the order in which Marie had last seen them, Anfossi and the staff officer entered the room of General Andre, and upon the soldiers in the hall the door was shut.

The face of the staff officer was grave, but his voice could not conceal his elation.

"My general," he reported, "I found this man in the act of giving information to the enemy.

There is a wireless--" General Andre rose slowly.

He looked neither at the officer nor at his prisoner.

With frowning eyes he stared down at the maps upon his table.

"I know," he interrupted.

"Some one has already told me."

He paused, and then, as though recalling his manners, but still without raising his eyes, he added: "You have done well, sir."

In silence the officers of the staff stood motionless.

With surprise they noted that, as yet, neither in anger nor curiosity had General Andre glanced at the prisoner.

But of the presence of the general the spy was most acutely conscious.

He stood erect, his arms still raised, but his body strained forward, and on the averted eyes of the general his own were fixed.

In an agony of supplication they asked a question.

At last, as though against his wish, toward the spy the general turned his head, and their eyes met.

And still General Andre was silent.

Then the arms of the spy, like those of a runner who has finished his race and breasts the tape exhausted, fell to his sides.

In a voice low and vibrant he spoke his question.

"It has been so long, sir," he pleaded.

"May I not come home?"

General Andre turned to the astonished group surrounding him.

His voice was hushed like that of one who speaks across an open grave.

"Gentlemen," he began, "my children," he added.

"A German spy, a woman, involved in a scandal your brother in arms, Henri Ravignac.

His honor, he thought, was concerned, and without honor he refused to live.

To prove him guiltless his younger brother Charles asked leave to seek out the woman who had betrayed Henri, and by us was detailed on secret service.

He gave up home, family, friends.

He lived in exile, in poverty, at all times in danger of a swift and ignoble death.

In the War Office we know him as one who has given to his country services she cannot hope to reward.

For she cannot return to him the years he has lost.

She cannot return to him his brother.

But she can and will clear the name of Henri Ravignac, and upon his brother Charles bestow promotion and honors."

The general turned and embraced the spy.

"My children," he said, "welcome your brother.

He has come home."

Before the car had reached the fortifications, Marie Gessler had arranged her plan of escape.

She had departed from the château without even a hand-bag, and she would say that before the shops closed she must make purchases.

Le Printemps lay in their way, and she asked that, when they reached it, for a moment she might alight.

Captain Thierry readily gave permission.

From the department store it would be most easy to disappear, and in anticipation Marie smiled covertly.

Nor was the picture of Captain Thierry impatiently waiting outside unamusing.

But before Le Printemps was approached, the car turned sharply down a narrow street.

On one side, along its entire length, ran a high gray wall, grim and forbidding.

In it was a green gate studded with iron bolts.

Before this the automobile drew suddenly to a halt.

The crew of the armored car tumbled off the rear seat, and one of them beat upon the green gate.

Marie felt a hand of ice clutch at her throat.

But she controlled herself.

"And what is this?"

she cried gayly.

At her side Captain Thierry was smiling down at her, but his smile was hateful.

"It is the prison of St. Lazare," he said.

"It is not becoming," he added sternly, "that the name of the Countess d'Aurillac should be made common as the Paris road!"

Fighting for her life, Marie thrust herself against him; her arm that throughout the journey had rested on the back of the driving-seat caressed his shoulders; her lips and the violet eyes were close to his.

"Why should you care?"

she whispered fiercely.

"You have _me_!

Let the Count d'Aurillac look after the honor of his wife himself."

The charming Thierry laughed at her mockingly.

"He means to," he said.

"I _am_ the Count d'Aurillac!"

PLAYING DEAD

To fate, "Jimmie" Blagwin had signalled the "supreme gesture."

He had accomplished the Great Adventure.

He was dead.

And as he sat on his trunk in the tiny hall bedroom, and in the afternoon papers read of his suicide, his eyes were lit with pleasurable pride.

Not at the nice things the obituaries told of his past, but because his act of self-sacrifice, so carefully considered, had been carried to success.

As he read Jimmie smiled with self-congratulation.

He felt glad he was alive; or, to express it differently, felt glad he was dead.

And he hoped Jeanne, his late wife, now his widow, also would be glad.

But not _too_ glad.

In return for relieving Jeanne of his presence he hoped she might at times remember him with kindness.

Of her always would he think gratefully and tenderly.

Nothing could end his love for Jeanne--not even this suicide.

As children, in winter in New York, in summer on Long Island, Jimmie Blagwin and Jeanne Thayer had grown up together.

They had the same tastes in sports, the same friends, the same worldly advantages.

Neither of them had many ideas.

It was after they married that Jeanne began to borrow ideas and doubt the advantages.

For the first three years after the wedding, in the old farmhouse which Jimmie had made over into a sort of idealized country club, Jeanne lived a happy, healthy, out-of-door existence.

To occupy her there were Jimmie's hunters and a pack of joyous beagles; for tennis, at week-ends Jimmie filled the house with men, and during the week they both played polo, he with the Meadow Brooks and she with the Meadow Larks, and the golf links of Piping Rock ran almost to their lodge-gate.

Until Proctor Maddox took a cottage at Glen Cove and joined the golf-club, than Jeanne and Jimmie on all Long Island no couple were so content.

At that time Proctor Maddox was the young and brilliant editor of the _Wilderness_ magazine, the wilderness being the world we live in, and the Voice crying in it the voice of Proctor Maddox.

He was a Socialist and Feminist, he flirted with syndicalism, and he had a good word even for the I. W.

W.

He was darkly handsome, his eyeglasses were fastened to a black ribbon, and he addressed his hostess as "dear lady."

He was that sort.

Women described him as "dangerous," and liked him because he talked of things they did not understand, and because he told each of them it was easy to see it would be useless to flatter _her_.

The men did not like him.

The oldest and wealthiest members of the club protested that the things Maddox said in his magazine should exclude him from the society of law-abiding, money-making millionaires.

But Freddy Bayliss, the leader of the younger crowd, said that, to him, it did not matter what Maddox said in the _Wilderness_, so long as he stayed there.

It was Bayliss who christened him "the Voice."

Until the Voice came to Glen Cove all that troubled Jeanne was that her pony had sprained a tendon, and that in the mixed doubles her eye was off the ball.

Proctor Maddox suggested other causes for discontent.

"What does it matter," he demanded, "whether you hit a rubber ball inside a whitewashed line, or not?

That energy, that brain, that influence of yours over others, that something men call--charm, should be exerted to emancipate yourself and your unfortunate sisters."

"Emaciate myself," protested Jeanne eagerly; "do you mean I'm taking on flesh?"

"I said 'emancipate,'" corrected Maddox.

"I mean to free yourself of the bonds that bind your sex; for instance, the bonds of matrimony.

It is obsolete, barbarous.

It makes of women--slaves and chattels."

"But, since I married, I'm _much_ freer," protested Jeanne.

"Mother never let me play polo, or ride astride.

But Jimmie lets me.

He says cross saddle is safer."

"Jimmie _lets_ you!"

mocked the Voice.

"_That_ is exactly what I mean.

Why should you go to him, or to any man, for permission?

Are you his cook asking for an evening out?

No!

You are a free soul, and your duty is to keep your soul from bondage.

There are others in the world besides your husband.

What of your duty to them?

Have you ever thought of them?"

"No, I have not," confessed Jeanne.

"Who do you mean by 'them'?

Shop-girls, and white slaves, and women who want to vote?"

"I mean the great army of the discontented," explained the Voice.

"And should I be discontented?"

asked Jeanne.

"Tell me why."

So, then and on many other occasions, Maddox told her why.

It was one of the best things he did.

People say, when the triangle forms, the husband always is the last to see.

But, if he loves his wife, he is the first.

And after three years of being married to Jeanne, and, before that, five years of wanting to marry Jeanne, Jimmie loved her devotedly, entirely, slavishly.

It was the best thing _he_ did.

So, when to Jeanne the change came, her husband recognized it.

What the cause was he could not fathom; he saw only that, in spite of her impatient denials, she was discontented, restless, unhappy.

Thinking it might be that for too long they had gone "back to the land," he suggested they might repeat their honeymoon in Paris.

The idea was received only with alarm.

Concerning Jeanne, Jimmie decided secretly to consult a doctor.

Meanwhile he bought her a new hunter.

The awakening came one night at a dance at the country club.

That evening Jeanne was filled with unrest, and with Jimmie seemed particularly aggrieved.

Whatever he said gave offense; even his eagerness to conciliate her was too obvious.

With the other men who did not dance, Jimmie was standing in the doorway when, over the heads of those looking in from the veranda, he saw the white face and black eyes of Maddox.

Jimmie knew Maddox did not dance, at those who danced had heard him jeer, and his presence caused him mild surprise.

The editor, leaning forward, unconscious that he was conspicuous, searched the ballroom with his eyes.

They were anxious, unsatisfied; they gave to his pale face the look of one who is famished.

Then suddenly his face lit and he nodded eagerly.

Following the direction of his eyes, Jimmie saw his wife, over the shoulder of her partner, smiling at Maddox.

Her face was radiant; a great peace had descended upon it.

Jimmie knew just as surely as though Jeanne had told him.

He walked out and sat down on the low wall of the terrace with his back to the club-house and his legs dangling.

Below him in the moonlight lay the great basin of the golf links, the white rectangle of the polo fields with the gallows-like goals, and on a hill opposite, above the tree-tops, the chimneys of his house.

He was down for a tennis match the next morning, and the sight of his home suggested to him only that he ought to be in bed and asleep.

Then he recognized that he never would sleep again.

He went over it from the beginning, putting the pieces together.

He never had liked Maddox, but he had explained that by the fact that, as Maddox was so much more intelligent than he, there could be little between them.

And it was because every one said he was so intelligent that he had looked upon his devotion to Jeanne rather as a compliment.

He wondered why already it had not been plain to him.

When Jeanne, who mocked at golf as a refuge for old age, spent hours with Maddox on the links; when, after she had declined to ride with her husband, on his return he would find her at tea with Maddox in front of the wood fire.

That night, when he drove Jeanne home, she still was joyous, radiant; it was now she who chided him upon being silent.

He waited until noon the next morning and then asked her if it were true.

It was true.

Jeanne thanked him for coming to her so honestly and straightforwardly.

She also had been straightforward and honest.

They had waited, she said, not through deceit but only out of consideration for him.

"Before we told you," Jeanne explained, "we wanted to be quite sure that _I_ was sure."

The "we" hurt Jimmie like the stab of a rusty knife.

But he said only: "And you _are_ sure?

Three years ago you were sure you loved _me_."

Jeanne's eyes were filled with pity, but she said: "That was three years ago.

I was a child, and now I am a woman.

In many ways you have stood still and I have gone on."

"That's true," said Jimmie; "you always were too good for me."

"_No_ woman is good enough for you," returned Jeanne loyally.

"And your brains are just as good as mine, only you haven't used them.

I have questioned and reached out and gained knowledge of all kinds.

I am a Feminist and you are not.

If you were you would understand."

"I don't know even what a Feminist is," said Jimmie, "but I'm glad I'm not one."

"A Feminist is one," explained Jeanne, "who does not think her life should be devoted to one person, but to the world."

Jimmie shook his head and smiled miserably.

"_You_ are _my_ world," he said.